“Lupo and Frankie Bones and their families are at table one. It’s on the far side of the dance floor to the right as you walk in the hall.”
“If we go in and drag them out, some of their people might try and be heroes, and some innocent people could get hurt. And if we wait until the party breaks, the same thing could happen.”
“We could take them at home in the morning,” Driscoll said, lighting a cigarette.
“I’d rather do it now. Where are their cars parked?”
“In the parking lot’s VIP spots, right next to the side entrance.”
“Bodyguards?”
“Not in the parking lot.”
“How many men you got with you?” Stuart asked.
“There are five of us in this car and another five across the street.”
“And there are four NYPD,” Stuart said, casting another look at the loitering parking lot attendants. All of the young men and women wore black trousers and white shirts under black wool vests. Their function was to park guests’ cars and then wait around until the party broke up to retrieve the cars. “Why don’t I go to the party and try to lure Lupo and Frankie Bones outside into the parking lot? We’ll replace the valet parking people with our people, and jump them when they come out after us.”
“How you gonna get them to come out after you?”
“I’m going dancing.” He called over the top of the car to Kahn, who was inside the department car with the others. “Hey, Helen, let’s you and me go to a party.”
Chez Pierre’s lobby had a stone waterfall that cascaded into a blue-and-gold-tiled wishing pool. Coins covered the pool’s bottom, and three grotesquely ornate crystal chandeliers illuminated the lobby.
Mambo music blared from inside the hall.
Gum-chewing young women dressed in tuxedo trouser suits directed guests. Clusters of pinky-rings stood around the lobby, talking. Some of them wore blue suits and ties; others were dressed in trousers and sports jackets with open-collared sportshirts. A line of women had formed outside the ladies’ room. Many of the younger women wore brightly colored low-cut dresses and the older women wore muted shades.
Kahn walked inside and stood in the back, reconnoitering. The dance floor was crowded. Each table had a beautiful floral arrangement set into a tall glass vase. She turned and motioned Stuart inside.
Stuart slipped into the room and sat in an empty seat at the half-filled table to the right of the entrance. He could catch glimpses of the people sitting at Lupo’s table across the dance floor. Lupo was talking to Madeline Fine, who was sitting on his left. Stuart assumed the woman on Lupo’s right was his wife. Frankie Bones was not there. He did not know the other two couples at the table.
He got up and went over to Kahn. “Frankie Bones isn’t there. Walk out into the lobby and see if you can find him.”
Outside in the parking lot, DEA agents and NYPD detectives quietly rounded up the attendants. Borrelli, Jones, and two DEA agents became valets. They took off their jackets and stuck their nines in their waistbands under their borrowed vests. Driscoll had put in a call to the Nassau County Police Department, requesting backup and an ambulance. Patrol cars blocked off all traffic around Chez Pierre. The parking gofers were escorted out of the parking lot and kept safely inside the patrol cars blocking off traffic.
The detectives and the DEA agents waited, leaning casually on Lupo’s and Frankie Bones’s cars.
“Are you fucking sure?” Frankie Bones barked into one of the phones in the lobby. His beeper had gone off as he was dancing with his wife.
“Yeah, I’m fuckin’ sure,” the voice from Chicago reported. “They took the warehouse, the stash, and all our people.”
“You sure it was the DEA?”
“Yeah.”
Frankie Bones slammed down the receiver, ignoring the woman standing at the phone next to him. Detective Kahn gently hung up and walked back into the party. Lupo had just taken a sip of wine when a shaken Frankie Bones went over to him and, bending, whispered into his ear, “The DEA took out our Chicago operation. They got the drugs and our people.”
The color drained from Lupo’s face. “You sure?”
“I just got off the phone with Sally Boy. He said they gassed our guys.”
“Stuart set this up. I want him dead.”
“You got ’im dead, Danny. What are we gonna do?”
“We’re gonna have a bad third quarter. But that’s not the problem. The problem is how bad can our people hurt us?”
“Those guys aren’t gonna turn.”
A joyless smile crossed Lupo’s face. “When you’re facing three concurrent life sentences without parole in a federal joint in Marion or Florence, you turn. Where are they being held?”
“They’re still in the Federal Building. They’ll probably arraign them sometime today.”
“You know what to do.”
“It’s gonna be hard, Danny,” he said, his eyes wandering the dance floor.
“Hard ain’t impossible.”
“Done like a …” His mouth fell open. He squinted several times to make sure he was seeing right.
He was.
Stuart and Kahn were dancing the mambo, their bodies gyrating to the raucous rhythm. Madeline Fine saw them, and her brow wrinkled in puzzlement. Wearing big grins, they danced over to Lupo’s table.
“Danny, you throw one helluva party,” Stuart said. He looked at Fine and asked, “How ya doin’, Madeline?”
Lupo leaped to his feet.
“We gotta go, Danny. Enjoy the rest of the party.”
Lupo was crimson with rage. His breath came in deep, chest-heaving grunts. He stood with clenched fists, watching the detectives dancing away. He looked at Frankie Bones. When he spoke, his tone was as cold as steel. “We’ll take ’em outside.”
Lupo walked around to a few tables, gathering up five more wiseguys. Frankie Bones walked over to table two and tapped one of the pinky-rings on the shoulder, saying, “We got problems.”
The pinky-ring reached under the table and picked up the gun bag, a straw-colored canvas tote holding nine unregistered revolvers and automatics.
Tramping purposefully into the lobby, ignoring the congratulations of friends, Lupo and his vengeful entourage stormed out into the parking lot with their guns drawn. Lupo was first out, followed by Frankie Bones and the others. They were greeted by an armory of shotguns and nine-millimeter automatics in the hands of detectives and federal agents. The party-goers froze.
Bewildered, Lupo and Frankie Bones looked around helplessly for an escape hatch. Slowly they lowered their weapons. Their soldiers followed suit.
The detectives and DEA agents swarmed over them, disarming and handcuffing them. One of the pinky-rings pushed Jones away. The detective rammed his nine against the side of the pinky-ring’s head.
“That hurts,” the thug protested.
“It’s only the beginning, goombah,” Jones said, tightening the cuffs.
Slipping a hand into his jacket pocket, Stuart removed the computer disk Carmine Marino had given him. Palming it, he slid his hand into Lupo’s jacket pocket and then pulled it out. Turning his hand over to reveal the disk lying in his palm, Stuart said, “Look what he had in his pocket.” He handed it to Jones. “Invoice this.”
“You planted that on me, you bastard,” Lupo protested.
“Hey, Danny, we’re the good guys, you’re the bad guys,” Stuart said.
After the prisoners were taken away, Stuart walked back inside. Madeline Fine was standing a few feet away from the door. “What happened?” she asked.
“Lupo and his friends have been arrested.”
Lupo’s wife and daughter ran screaming out into the lobby. Friends rushed to comfort them.
“Did you have to do this here, now? It’s not very nice, Lieutenant,” said Beansy Rutolo’s girlfriend.
“Madeline, you don’t know what not nice is,” Stuart said, and proceeded to tell her how Lupo had turned the Franklin Investment Trust Corp
oration into one of organized crime’s biggest moneymakers.
“I don’t believe it,” she said.
“Believe it.”
“What’s going to happen?”
Stuart looked at Lupo’s hysterical family. “You and your niece will take over the business, bring in honest management, and get on with your lives. Lupo and Frankie Bones are going to spend the rest of their lives in a federal prison.”
“Was my Anthony part of any of this?” she asked, avoiding his eyes.
“No,” he lied. “Anthony was small-time. He wasn’t a killer.”
She sighed in relief. “I always knew he wasn’t like the rest of them.”
“How could you have allowed Lupo to run Franklin Trust?”
She shrugged. “He was smart and making good money on investments. Why would he do anything illegal? That never entered our minds.”
Shaking his head at her faith in the man, Stuart turned to leave.
“Lieutenant.” She grabbed his wrist. “Were you telling me the truth about Anthony’s involvement with them?”
“Yes, Madeline, I was.”
“One of your crosses in life has been that Anthony Rutolo helped out your father.”
“I could never understand why he did that.”
She hesitated, then looked at him pointedly. “If you want the answer, ask your aunt Elizabeth.”
The telephone notifications directing the chief of detectives, his XO, and the other members of Knight’s Roundtable to report forthwith in civilian clothes to the police headquarters auditorium were logged in the Big Building’s command log at 0347 Saturday morning and signed by the police commissioner.
Chief of Detectives Kevin Hartman arrived first, followed by Deputy Chief Aaron Flieger, Jim Gebheart, and the CO of the Order Section.
They loitered outside the auditorium, talking in hushed tones, asking one another if they knew why they had been summoned by the police commissioner.
Hartman shrugged in bravado and said, “It probably has something to do with some bullshit press release.” His strong tone belied the hollow feeling in his stomach.
Chief Flieger said, “You see the news reports of that DEA raid in Chicago?”
“What’s that got to do with us?” Hartman said.
A uniform police officer came over to them and said, “The PC would like you to take seats up front.”
The brass filed into the empty amphitheater and sat in the first row. The stage’s lectern bore the emblem of the NYPD. An American flag stood on the left side of the stage, with the flag of the city of New York on the right.
Stuart and Driscoll accompanied the police commissioner onstage. They stood at the podium, staring with disgust at the uneasy men in the front row. DEA agents entered the room from both sides of the auditorium and took up positions in front of the seated men.
The PC ran his fingers through his white hair, gripped the lectern, and said, “You have disgraced this department, yourselves, your families, and the half a million honest policemen of this country.” He looked offstage at the Seven One Squad detectives standing in the wings, then said to the seated men, “Thank God you were brought down by members of this department.”
Driscoll stepped up to the podium. “You’re under arrest for facilitating the importation, distribution, and sale of drugs, engaging in a criminal conspiracy, violating the civil rights of honest policemen, hindering prosecution, money laundering, and not paying income tax on your corrupt money.” He looked at the other DEA agents and said, “Read ’em their rights and get ’em out of my sight.”
Each one of the prisoners was disarmed and his shield taken. They were given their Miranda warnings as they were being handcuffed. Then they were led out of the auditorium.
Stuart walked over to the detectives and shook their hands. “Thanks.”
“Any time, Lou,” Jones said.
“The PC asked me to tell you that effective immediately you’re all promoted to first grade,” Stuart said.
“Lou, ask the PC not to put my name in orders,” Jones said. “If Plaintiff ever knew I was making lieutenant’s money, she’d haul my ass back into court, looking for more al-o-mony.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Stuart said. Looking at Kahn, he added, “Whitehouser is getting a forthwith to the Fourteenth Floor in the morning. He’s going to be told to put his papers in right away or he’ll be brought up on charges and dismissed.”
“Thanks, Lou,” Kahn said. She looked at her partners and added, “Before we start on the paperwork, why don’t you two spring for breakfast?”
“You got it, kiddo,” Borrelli said, and the three detectives started for the exit. Stuart looked up and saw Patrick Sarsfield Casey sitting by himself in the last row, staring up at him. He sidestepped past the empty seats and sat down beside him.
Stuart looked at Casey for a long time before saying, “You were at the original Knight’s Roundtable, yet it doesn’t look like you participated in the corruption. Why?”
“I could never stoop to taking drug money, hurting cops.”
“But when Knight’s Roundtable started taking drug money, you became a team player. You knew about it and didn’t do shit to stop it.”
“I’m ol’ school, Matt. I believe in the blue wall of silence. I could never bring myself to do what you just did.”
“You would have saved a lot of people a lot of misery if you had, Patrick Sarsfield.”
“That’s something I’m going to have to live with.”
“I told you about those mug shots, and you didn’t warn Hartman. And when I reached out to you, you got me the Cellmate that helped us break this case wide open. Why did you do that?”
He looked down at his hands. “I needed to feel like a cop again. And, I guess on some level I wanted to destroy Knight’s Roundtable.” He looked at Stuart. “The decision finally came down on my age discrimination suit. Everyone told me that I was going to lose, but I won. There is no more mandatory retirement age in the Job.”
“I think it’s probably wise to throw in your papers first thing Monday morning.”
“I … I guess you’re right, under the circumstances.”
“Yeah, under the circumstances.”
Stuart got up and walked up the aisle toward the entrance. He glanced back in time to see Patrick Sarsfield Casey wiping tears from his eyes.
24
Saturday morning broke clear and chilly.
Stuart had gotten home shortly after six o’clock. He needed to wash the smell of cordite and death from his body, so the first thing he did was undress and shower. He lifted his face and let the downpour wash over him. He felt the tension leaving his body; only the pain of losing Suzanne remained. After toweling himself dry, he shaved and splashed on some aftershave. He stepped into clean briefs and walked barefoot into the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee. He should be dead tired, but he wasn’t. He knew the exhaustion would come later.
He sat on the living room couch, watching CNN. The program featured a panel of experts, none of whom had ever been policemen, discussing the arrests of top members of the NYPD and giving their “expert” opinions on what should be done to stop police corruption.
Exasperated, Stuart got up and switched off the set. Back in the bedroom, he dressed: a blue cotton shirt, brown corduroy trousers, a crew-neck yellow sweater, brown tasseled loafers.
As he headed down the driveway, he slowed to watch a whirlpool of leaves, marveling at the beauty of their autumn hues: yellow, orange, rust, crimson. Their short life was over, and so was part of his. He drove on.
St. Joseph’s Nursing Home was housed in a six-story apartment building on Manhattan’s First Avenue, half a block north of Jefferson Park and one block west of Pleasant Avenue. The home was administered by Carmelite nuns.
Stuart drove into the parking lot in the rear of the building and pulled into one of the visitors’ spaces. A statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel stood inside the small lobby, and a painting of the pope adorned
the wall. He walked over to the security desk. A big guy with the look of an Irish cop watched him from over the desk and said, “Can I help you?”
“I’d like to see Sister Elizabeth. I’m her nephew.”
“You’re the lieutenant who’s on the Job?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s always talking about you. My name’s Frank Kelly. I retired out of the Fifth Squad in eighty-two.”
“Matt Stuart.” They shook hands. Stuart looked around at the men and women in wheelchairs, thinking. It’s amazing how many retired cops and their relatives you run across in the course of a set of tours. He looked back at Kelly. “You have any problems in the neighborhood?”
“Not really. The wiseguys from Pleasant Avenue look out for the nuns and people who live here. Six years ago a mutt from the Jefferson housing projects across First Avenue raped one of our nuns in the parking lot. The wiseguys grabbed him and tossed him off a nineteen-story roof. Since then, we don’t have any problems.”
Stuart smiled. “That’s the best kind of crime prevention.”
“You got that one right, Lou. Why don’t you grab a seat in the chapel? I’ll call Sister.”
He genuflected and slid into the last pew. A wooden crucifix hung over the altar, and the air was heavy with incense. He said a silent prayer for his son, and Andrea, and Beansy.
“Matt, what a pleasant surprise.” She wore the Carmelite habit; a black veil that covered her hair, a white guimpe under a dark brown habit, and a plain gold wedding band that signified her marriage to God. She genuflected and slid in beside him. An old black cardigan sweater that Matt’s father had given her one Christmas covered her shoulders.
He leaned across and kissed her on the cheek. “How are you, Aunt Elizabeth?”
“This place keeps me hopping. I’m leaving next week for a week’s retreat at our mother house in Maine. I’m trying to get a million things done before I go.” Her deep blue eyes twinkled. “I see you’re becoming a famous police lieutenant.”
“Not really. I’m one of the anonymous players.”
“You’re all over the television.”
“By tomorrow night I’ll be gone and forgotten.” He looked up at the crucifix, took his aunt’s hand in his, and said, “My squad caught the Beansy Rutolo homicide. And his live-in girlfriend told me that you know why he testified for Dad.”
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